Jurassic World: Dominion Drags Down Dinos With Dumb Plots

If you have any issues with bugs, I am going to tell you to sit this movie out. The bug content in this movie is unrelenting. Some may consider that a spoiler, since they aren’t shown in any trailer, but I call it a public service announcement.

I was hopeful for Jurassic World: Dominion. I like the dinosaur cast of these movies and the sets have been fun. I was excited to see what they might do with the premise of “humans adjusting to sharing the world with dinosaurs” and some of the creative ideas that could bloom within that. But this movie isn’t about that. 

In the tradition of the previous World movies there’s a strong cold open, in this case a NowThis story about dinosaurs in modern life that immediately reveals several essential plot points that the movie then spends the next hour trying to convince us is actually a mystery and has been this whole time. 

So, if anyone remembers the last movie, Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) kidnapped a clone child, and since actions have consequences, some people are upset about that and want her back. Claire is a dinosaur vigilante and Owen is a dinosaur cowboy, and they don’t let Maisie (Isabella Sermon), the clone, leave their land, creating what the movie seems to think is tension. There’s also a B-plot I cared much more about concerning giant mutant locusts who only eat crops not grown by one company (the company also factors heavily into the cold open), causing the global food chain to collapse. This is where the OG team of Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum comes back into play. Eventually, the girl is kidnapped, and so is Blue, the last raptor’s child (don’t ask). 

This is when the movie starts to fall apart. 

There’s about an hour and twenty minutes of talking with on again off again dinosaurs and occasional action set pieces. Sam Neil seems like he’s not sure he wants to be there, sometimes acting hard and sometimes clearly phoning it in (he calls Dr. Satler “Allie” consistently throughout; her name is Ellie) and by the end of the movie we have a cast of eight we’re supposed to keep track of and care about (two of them are introduced in this movie). Honestly there are a few baffling acting choices in this movie, including the main villain who is really trying something in his performance. (I am not sure if it’s meant to come off as a caricature of neurodivergent behavior, but it does at times). 

Honestly this movie was slow and thought it was clever and felt like it was waiting for a pat on the back for being so smart. It crawled when what could’ve been its actual premise was ready to run and seemed more interested in selling new dinosaur toys than being a movie. (That said, if they make a particular backpack from the movie, I will buy one). There are some effective scenes sprinkled throughout, but the film continually undercuts its own stakes. In a dinosaur movie none of our eight characters even get seriously hurt. Not even a sprained ankle or smudged mascara. 

It feels like there are two plots, with completely different pacing and structures that make the movie drag. Jurassic World movies truly have diminishing returns and this one definitely feels like the worst-made bang for your buck. 

I give Jurassic World: Dominion (Universal, PG-13, 2hrs 26mins) a 1.5 out of 5.